“Ruffily, what’s the main water source for villagers in Orm?” Winter asked her.

“Woof! Uhm, there’s a river on the east side that they sometimes use. It feeds into the well on the eastern side of Orm, that’s the one we use for smithing and farming and stuff, they don’t drink it usually. Drinking water for cooking and alchemy comes from the well towards the center of Orm, if that’s why you’re asking. Woof!” Ruffily replied.

“What about the fountain in the center, where does it get water from?” Winter replied with a sense of urgency in his voice.

“The fountain pulls from the river I’m pretty sure...Woof! Guards get mad if you try to touch it though.” She answered. “Are you on a quest or something?”

“Yeah, thanks, I’ll explain later.” Winter closed the message interface and rushed towards the center well after asking a few players and NPCs where it was. It was in a crowded area surrounded by players and NPCs, a few merchant stands nearby as well. It was a simple cobblestone well with a tiny wooden roof, a rope with a bucket hanging on a spindle. What stood out to Winter was that it had an iron grate locked in place atop the well by a simple chain lock, preventing the water from being drawn.

Winter tried to pry open the grate but the lock held firm. He took a step back to think about it, and in that time he watched an older man with a white name above his head walk towards the well holding a wooden bucket. [Rinok Stormdon - Level 3].

“Dangit, who the heck keeps locking this thing in the middle of the day?” Rinok grumbled as he turned to walk away.

“Uh, excuse me…” Winter stepped in front of him. “The well isn’t usually locked?” Winter asked.

“It is at night, but if we’ve got guards watching it, they’ll unlock it. To make sure no one messes with it. Just gotta go and find one. All lazy, the whole lot of ‘em.” Rinok complained as he peered around the crowds. Winter took a step back to watch the interactions unfold. He was impressed, the NPC Rinok flagged down a nearby Kalmoore Guard, and the two of them had an authentic argument without any real player getting involved. It started to feel to Winter as though this place was filled with actual real people.

The confrontation resulted in the guard giving in to Rinok’s demands and walking towards the well, unlocking it with a keyring on his belt.

“Where the heck is Farlion. It’s gotta be the 5th time in the past week.” The guard mumbled to himself as he took position near the well to watch over it. Rinok took the opportunity to hook up his own wooden bucket to the spindle rope, but Winter stepped forward to stop him.

“Wait, I have reason to believe that this water is poisoned.” They both looked at him confused. “Your friend, Farlion you said? He keeps locking up the well during the day?” Winter asked.

“Y-yeah… who are you exactly?”

“My name is Winter, I am a Priest of Eirene. I’m looking into the cause of the recent sickness spreading through Orm. You’ve heard about it, right?” Winter asked.

“Y-yeah. Of course. We’re supposed to lock it up anytime a guard isn't present to watch over it. Farlion typically watches it in the early hours of the day, but he’s been off doing something else - not sure what, so he locks it up.”

“How long has he been doing this?”

“I guess a week or two, every couple of days.” The guard shrugged.

“Do you mind if I climb down and check the water?” Winter asked as he moved forward to the edge of the well.

“Yeah, I do, that’s the village’s drinking water, you’re covered in dirty leather.” The guard protested, to which Rinok nodded in agreement.

“If I’m right, then that water is poisoned.” Winter argued.

“Yeah but if you’re wrong, our water’s gonna be disgustingly filthy with whatever that stuff is on you.” The guard retorted. Winter looked down to see he still had saliva and blood stains on his armor, both from himself and the Rockjaws. He sighed and rolled his eyes back as he began unequipping his equipment down to his cloth shirt and pants. Once he finished though, the Guard didn’t seem satisfied.

“Seriously?” Winter asked, and the guard shrugged. The two watched as Winter undressed down to his basic cloth underwear, and truth be told he was surprised the game let him get this close to naked. He couldn’t resist the temptation to look into his underpants to see just how far the game took its realism, but there was nothing there - it was flat between his legs. The two NPC’s saw him do this and looked at each other quizzically. As he stood there practically naked he heard several whistles and catcalls from nearby players walking by.

“That oughta be alright.” The guard nodded approvingly. Winter shook his head in annoyance as he climbed into the well, grabbing the rope. Rinok leaned over the edge to watch, as did the guard while slowly winding the spindle to lower Winter down.

It got colder and darker as the top of the well got further away, the single round beam of light illuminating the bottom of the well.

“What’re you looking for exactly?” The guard shouted down, his voice echoing off the cobblestone walls.

“Vials or, a creature corpse, or something, signs of poisoning.” Winter shouted back. It wasn’t long before the cold water touched his bare feet. “That’s good right there, hang on a sec.” Winter began sifting his hands through the water and found nothing on the surface. He couldn’t see much for how deep it went but eventually let go of the rope and dove in.

It was hard to see so he relied on his sense of touch to feel around for anything unusual, swimming deeper and deeper. Nothing but cobblestone, but as he swam underwater low enough he noticed suddenly his stamina began draining rapidly, and he felt the sensation of suffocating. The thought of running out of air in the game didn’t immediately occur to him, but he pieced it together quickly when he felt this desperate pain in his lungs of gasping for air.

It was one of the most horrible sensations he’d ever felt in his life, no doubt due to his pain threshold - the sensation of suffocation and being unable to breath got stronger and stronger as his stamina plummeted downward. He broke the surface of the water at the last second, taking in a deep breath of air and panting heavily.

“Holy shit.” He mumbled to himself. A few seconds later, the sensation faded from his lungs and throat. He looked to see that his stamina had dropped to 15.

“You find anything?” The guard shouted down.

“N-no, nothing…” Winter hesitated as he calmed his breathing down. To be sure, he decided to open his mouth wide and take a big drink of the water. Worst case for him is he’d revive in 20 hours, he thought. After ingesting the water though, he had no status ailments appear. “All clear, pull me up.” Winter tugged on the rope. Rinok and the Guard worked together to bring him back up out of the well where he quickly put his armor and clothing back on.

“So it’s safe to drink?” Rinok asked.

“Should be.” Winter ruffled his hair to get the water out. “Tell me, if the well is locked, where would someone go to get water? If they’re too lazy to ask another guard for help.” Winter asked.

“They’re supposed to go to the river just outside of the village. However many of them are lazy and take water from the eastern well, even though they’re not supposed to, it’s not meant for drinking.” The guard replied.

“Okay, thanks.” Winter nodded, but before he could walk away he saw another player approach him from out of the crowds. [Pilvas - Level 6].

“Hey, you just went into the well, right?” Pilvas walked in front to block his path. “You doing the priest quest too?”

“Y-yeah, why do you ask?” Winter hesitated.

“There’s a couple of us, seems like all the churches in Orm are giving out the quest. We’ve been trying to find out the poison source for the past few days. I coulda told you that the drinking water is clean.” Pilvas shrugged. “We’ve got a few checking into the granary now, and looking into some shady merchants trading food the last few days. Nothing yet. How about you, find anything?” Pilvas asked.

“Nope… honestly just started looking.” Winter shrugged, feeling a bit of pressure fall off his shoulders. He initially thought the quest was given to just him, but when he thought about it logically, even in a realistic setting it made no sense that the priests would only rely on one person. He let out an audible sigh of relief, but simultaneously became more concerned - if several priest players hadn’t been able to figure it out over the past few days, it’d be a lot harder to solve than he initially thought.

“Well, there’s a job board out front of the town hall, we have a parchment posted there tracking everything we’ve checked and are suspicious about. If you have anything to add or want to know what we know, just stop by it and check it out. Better if we work together on this. Good luck.” Pilvas smiled and nodded politely before walking away.

Winter decided to drop by the job board and found a parchment with a label on the top that read ‘PRIEST POISON INVESTIGATION’. Below it were a list of possible leads, and a list of things that had been checked already. The Center well was the first thing marked off, and not far below it was the eastern river which fed into the eastern well and fountain. However the eastern well and fountain themselves hadn’t been checked. Winter had his doubts but decided to be completely sure.

He made his way over towards the fountain first. As he approached the fountain nestled in the very center of Orm where all of the streets converged, the busy markets all around it peddling their wares, he was reminded of his first day in the game - this was the exact spot he’d appeared. He noticed a few players appearing around the fountain seemingly for the first time just like he had - some as level 1 players, others appeared to be Lanusk refugees.

Most importantly,Herilon and several guards were walking around this area. A few people sat on the edge of the fountain but no one appeared interested in drinking the water at all. Winter watched the area for sometime for any unusual activity, but nothing out of the ordinary occurred. After about 15 minutes he decided on checking the river next, passing by the eastern well along the way where he watched some Orm NPC’s filling up watering cans meant for gardening, a guard standing watch. He headed out of Orm to the east. The outskirts of Orm were mainly farmlands that transitioned into the forest at the circular treeline that surrounded Orm. However to the east was where the main road towards Kordas was located, passing over a river via a stone bridge before going beyond.

The river was partially obscured by the large trees of Orm forest, but it wasn’t very far beyond the treeline, so easy enough to travel to. Winter followed along the road and got to the bridge, seeing many travelers and merchants passing by going in both directions, some with wagons and carts pulled by various beasts of burden.

Winter leaned over the side of the bridge to look at the river as it travelled from north to south, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He did spot up the river northward aways a large wooden water mill. Figuring it must be where the fountain and east well got water, he hopped off the bridge and followed along the riverbank towards the building.

When he got close to the building, built on a rocky section of the riverbank, he noticed a guard standing in front of the door leading into the watermill. He was seconds away from revealing himself, raising his hand up to get the guard’s attention for questioning, until he noticed the white name above his head. [Farlion - Level 10].

Winter instead looked for a large rock near the edge of the river and ducked behind it as quietly as possible, to not be seen. He watched Farlion carefully and waited, noticing he was glancing around anxiously in all directions as if extremely nervous. After several minutes the door to the mill opened from behind Farlion. Out stepped a figure wearing a black hooded cloak, obscuring their identity - Winter couldn’t tell yet if it was a player or an NPC.

“Good, we are done for today.” The male voice spoke from under the hood.

“A-and my wife?”

“She is unharmed. Do as we say and nothing will happen to her.”

“When will I see her again?” Farlion replied in a panic.

“When our work is complete.” The voice replied. Farlion looked down at his feet shamefully while the cloaked figure walked from the building deeper into Orm forest. Farlion slowly walked off as well. Once the coast was clear, Winter got up and approached the building.

The door was left unlocked, he was able to step inside without much difficulty. It was an old spacious building built of dark oak planks and logs. There were many windows, a few crates and barrels leaning up against the various walls as well. The entire eastern wall was open, giving a good view of the water wheel rotating with the movement of the river.

It was all very primitive to Winter but after looking at the structure he could piece together how it was functioning. The wheel was being used to grind grains into flour on one end, and the crates and barrels were apparently loaded full with it - though the gristmill was currently not being used.

Another portion of the building was using a secondary smaller wheel to draw water into a small funnel, the water was feeding into a wooden canal that led into a pipe of some sort which seemed to travel into the ground westward back towards Orm. Winter walked across the building, the floorboards damp and creaking under his step, and approached the water intake. The sound of the turning wheel and the running river water made it hard to hear much of anything regardless of how loud his footsteps were, but he still kept glancing behind to make sure no one had heard him and followed him in.

When he got to the edge of the water intake he saw a cork resting on the floorboards nearby. Winter picked it up to look at it carefully, it looked identical to the corks he used when he was learning Alchemy, to seal vials and bottles. Knowing he was on the right track, he turned to sprint out of the building, hoping to catch a glimpse of either Farlion or the cloaked figure, but they were both long gone.

He at least knew where to look for Farlion and broke into a sprint back towards Orm. Just at the threshold of the townsquare he caught up to him and grabbed his shoulder, pulling him back.

“Ah, eh? What? What do you want?” Farlion replied in a panic.

“Where is he hiding, the cloaked guy?” Winter asked while releasing his shoulder.

“The cloaked? - Uh, I, I uh, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know you’re lying. Do you know what he’s doing? What are you helping him do?” Winter shouted angrily, as he himself had pieced it together.

“I don’t-”

“You lock the west well, he poisons the east well and the fountain water. Anyone who can’t reach the river easily drinks from the east well during that time, even when they shouldn’t, and get poisoned - explains why everyone’s having a hard time finding the source.” Winter spoke aloud partially to Farlian, partially to himself. “You’re killing the people of Orm, you know that? Just this morning, a young man died.” From this, fright fell on Farlion’s face, and a look of desperate guilt.

“H-he has my wife. He’s going to kill her if I don’t do what he says.” Farlion whimpered. Winter sighed, taking a step back to think on how to handle this character.

“Listen, I’m a Priest of Eirene. I can get your wife back and put a stop to what he’s doing, but only if you tell me where he is.”

“I…” He hesitated for a moment as Winter stared him down.

Skill Learned: Persuasion (Beginner)

“He’s hiding out in an old woodcutter waystation. It’s a stone building just north east of the treeline, we use it to store firewood once it’s dried out. H-he’s really dangerous. You promise to save my wife?” Farlion replied anxiously.

“I’ll do my best.” Winter replied as he turned and ran quickly towards the north eastern treeline.